E3 2012: Runes of Magic: Fires of Shadowforge

Runes of Magic is back with Chapter V of their fantasy saga. What once started with just humans, added a bit of elven flavor, and now is adding the fan desired dwarves to the mix. Chapter V is the Fires of Shadowforge and you’ll be able to play it as soon as next week; June 12th to be exact. These dwarves delved in some demonic magic centuries ago and have now paid for it. Modern archaeologists have reawakened this ancient race thus introducing them as a playable race in Runes of Magic. How will the world of RoN react to the remerging beings from deep within the planet?

With the fantasy genre’s stout bearded friends, come two exclusive classes for dwarves only. The ‘Champion’ is a melee class which can specialize as a tank or DPS role. Their melee attacks use magic to bolster their prowess and to defeat their opponents. The Champion also has the unique ability to turn into a robot for when they need to take on that absolutely tanky role. The ‘warlock’ is a range class which specializes in both DPS and support roles. The attacks of this class are based off soul magic attacks. Dwarves are also able to play other classes that are not race specific.

The new content in Fires of Shadowforge includes the dwarf race (males only), two new player classes, a brand new starting zone, and a dwarf exclusive instance at the end of their starting zone: Taffrock Southern District. Once this zone is completed you can join your other friends online in the above world of RoM. While underground though, you can explore the mystical forest like cavers, cliff sides, and the dwarven homelands.

I got the opportunity to try out a dwarven warlock to get a feel of what to expect in Fires of Shadowforge. I was only able to play through a few quests in my limited time, but both the game and warlock had a smooth feel to them. Starting out, the warlock had a single target attack spell to start with and single target weakening curse to cast on foes. The environment truly gave a feel of being hundreds of feet underground and the architecture gave the stone surroundings a truly fantasy dwarven look.

The great aspect of Runes of Magic is that it is a completely free to play MMORPG. Through downloading the client from the RoN website the game can be yours in just a short while and you will never be asked to pay a monthly fee. What, that’s not easy enough for you? Fine. Runes of Magic and all the chapters, including Fires of Shadowforge, can be played on any PC web browser. So if you play at home, your laptop, work computer, friend’s house, etc, all of your characters can be found where ever you log in at. It doesn’t get any easier than that. Check out RoM today if you haven’t already and prepare for the introduction of the dwarves.

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